Founded by Adrian Zecha in 1988, Amanresorts came into being when Zecha was looking for a holiday home in Phuket. He discovered the ideal location – a coconut plantation with no other developments in sight – when wandering along Pansea Beach on the island’s west coast. Plans to build a home on the site soon developed into an idea to build a small boutique resort in partnership with Anil Thadani and two other friends. They invested their own money in the venture as no banks would lend for the project due to the small number of planned rooms. At this time resorts usually featured 500 rooms or more, and the boutique hotel concept was still in its infancy.

Amanpuri (Place of Peace) opened in January 1988 with 40 rooms and 30 private villas. From the positive response to this project, now Amanresorts’ flagship property, Zecha was encouraged to develop more resorts employing the same concept. While initially the resorts were concentrated in Asia (now including properties in Bhutan, Cambodia, China, French Polynesia, India, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand), over the last two decades the group has also opened resorts in France, Morocco, Montenegro, the Turks & Caicos Islands and the United States.